A teenager born with HIV is in remission despite stopping treatment 12 years ago, doctors have said.

The 18-year-old French woman's infection is under control and nearly undetectable.

It is the first ever report of long-term remission in a child from HIV.

She had been given four anti-retroviral drugs when she was just three months, but her family stopped the treatment shortly before she turned six.

Now the presence of the disease in her system is virtually undetectable.

The teen might have some form of natural resistance to HIV that hasn't yet been discovered.

"It's likely that this girl has been in virological remission for so long because she received a combination of anti-retrovirals very soon after infection," said Dr Asier Saez-Cirion from the Institut Pasteur in Paris.